A solar storm may cast colored lights – known as the Aurora Borealis or Northern lights – in the sky over parts of the northern Plains, the Great Lakes region and Northeast on Thursday and Friday, forecasters say.

“There is a directional component to it,” he said. “It really matters where you are.”

In this case, the cloud – like a foul ball at a baseball game – is “coming our way.”

He said best viewing would probably be Thursday around midnight in all regions, weather permitting.

Normally, “the Northern lights mostly appear at the very northern or southern latitudes because that’s where the magnetic fields of Earth come through the atmosphere,” Andrew West, a Boston University professor in the department of astronomy, told The Times in an email.

“Following large solar flares where huge amounts of particles are sent into the solar system, we can often see auroras and sometimes at mid-latitudes."

Dr. William Paterson of NASA's Department of Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, said that the aurora is visible in these areas “a couple of times a decade.”

Back in 2004, Paterson said the Northern lights were visible as far south as Virginia. But the magnitude of this geomagnetic solar storm is hard to predict.

“Exactly how dramatic the storm is going to be, we can’t tell,” Paterson said. “But it is within the realm of possibilities that the Northern lights are going to be seen pretty far south.”

Kunches said if the storm isn’t as severe as forecasters are predicting, the Northern lights may only make its way to the U.S.-Canada border.

The name “aurora borealis” means “dawn of the north.” In Roman myth, Aurora was the goddess of the dawn, according to the Canada-based Northern Lights Centre website.

Colors in the aurora – which can be shades of red, yellow, green, blue – “are produced when certain elements in the atmosphere – mostly oxygen or nitrogen – are excited by the charged particles,” West said.

But there are some downsides to the colorful display.

NASA had to delay a launch Wednesday because officials were worried about the effects of the solar flare, Paterson said.

High-frequency radio communications, GPS systems and satellite operations of various types are usually down during solar storms, Kunches said.

"However, not to worry," he said. "Mother Nature is doing what Mother Nature will do and we are ready for it."